The NZ television awards are back, baby, and the nominees are….

After five years in which our local TV successes went largely uncelebrated, New Zealand once again has a national television awards. The full list of nominees has just been announced, along with the winners of the technical craft awards which are doled out early. Duncan Greive analyses the list and picks some winners.

Incredibly strange but entirely true: New Zealand has spent five long years without any television awards. The last go round was the Qantas Awards in 2012, which were preceded by the Screen Awards, which were preceded by the AFTAs, which were preceded by the GOFTAs, at which everyone got so staggeringly wasted that all memory from before that time has been erased.

The QANTAS award ended for reasons which are the stuff of TV cliché: they were televised and the networks could not agree over which should air it, so Kevin Kenrick pulled his troops. Now they’re shrunk to being more a guild thing: tables in a room, with the only cameras on phones. This is how a very good and boozy award ceremony is run, just FYI.

The full list of nominees is below, along with some notations in italics below categories where there seems something noteworthy about them. The main thing to note is that the relevant period runs back to 2015, making it an extra-competitive round. And that the winners will be revealed at ‘a gala event at SKYCITY Theatre on November 30’. Read on for the nominees; the nominees by channel and the winners of the craft awards.

It is perhaps instructive about the fate of some big budget dramas over the past couple of years that two of the three were not funded by NZ on Air: 800 Words, made for Australia’s 7 network, and Duke’s Cleverman. The biggest absentee? Shortland Street, which celebrated 25 incredible years with a magic feature-length episode, yet has been inexplicably snubbed.

There is a distinct lack of one of the most popular formats in NZ TV here: imported reality shows like The Block and The Bachelor. This seems fucked, in the author’s opinion, given how well-executed some of these have been. It’s also been noticed: the organisers provided this statement: “Following the judges’ ruling in the 2017 Best Reality Programme category, it has become evident to the TV Awards organisers that it would be prudent to consider expanding the scope of the Best Reality category in future years.” The Spinoff is pleased to hear this.

Two of the three nominees here are from online platforms, illustrative of the profound swing away from primetime current affairs on the major networks – both were victims of Mark Weldon’s reign of terror at TV3. This shows how much online news sites have picked up the slack in that space, despite finding it far harder to receive similar funding to that which once made the network shows happen.

An explosively growing area that simply could not have existed when the awards were last held, bet on categories expanding in future. All the nominees are strong in their own right, but the absence of the likes of Aroha Bridge, So this Happened and Psusy shows how deep this category is.

All of these were or are joys in their own way: John Campbell has rarely been happier than wandering through Apia, Johnson was revelatory in a different environment, and The Crowd Goes Wild is a hall of fame show. These are oases in what is often a desert for sports programming.

Television Personality Of The Year

Pua Magasiva

Jack Tame

Miriama Kamo

Rachel Hunter

Hilary Barry

Toni Street

Kanoa Lloyd

Dai Henwood

Anika Moa

Jono Pryor

Finally some actual bloody glamour! Aside from the grind and craft of TV, this kind of thing is what the people actually want from their TV awards – all the stars, as voted in by Woman’s Day readers. I am right here for it.

The Spinoff prediction: Hilary Barry

Jesse Mulligan, The Project (Three)

Best Presenter: News and Current Affairs

Kanoa Lloyd
The Project
MediaWorks (Three)

Mike McRoberts
Newshub Live at 6pm
MediaWorks (Three)

Jesse Mulligan
The Project
MediaWorks (Three)

Notice something suspicious about the above? No TVNZ hosts. They essentially decided that the awards should not assess news or journalism, which deprived many of their best journalists the recognition they deserve. Hopefully next time they’ll have got some medication for those dry balls and got involved.

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